Royal Phillips Moves Against Child Pneumonia

According to a statement by a leading health technology company, Royal Phillips, on Thursday in Lagos to commemorate the World Pneumonia Day, a Children’s Automated Respiration Monitor device, designed to tackle dreaded disease, Pneumonia, would be made available to the public soon.
When effectively used, the device was capable of preventing many of the 935,000 childhood deaths caused by pneumonia each year.

“The Children’s Automated Respiration Monitor has the potential to assist community health workers in establishing a more accurate measurement of a sick child’s breathing rate to help improve the diagnosis of pneumonia.

“Each year, pneumonia kills more children than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined, and remains the leading infectious cause of death among children under-five.

“It kills nearly 2,500 children a day, with most victims under two years of age,’’ the statement said.
“As a leading health technology company, Philips’ vision is to improve peoples’ lives through meaningful innovation.

“Today, the population growth is highest in emerging markets like Africa and South East Asia.

“Innovation can help drive sustainable solutions that bridge the divide between the privileged and lesser privileged sections of society to improve the quality of life at all levels,’’ the statement quoted Van Dongen, CEO Philips Africa as saying.

It added that the device was pending CE-marking and was expected to become commercially available from the second quarter of 2016.

The World Pneumonia Day is annually held on November 12, to raise awareness about pneumonia, promote prevention and treatment, as well as generate action to fight the illness.

World Pneumonia Day supports all efforts made to protect and treat people against pneumonia, the single largest cause of child deaths worldwide.